Carrot Cupcake Recipe

      My friend's twin sons will be having their birthday next Monday and I promised her to make them a batch of decorated cupcakes. They will turn 2 years old. I don't want to bake something with too much sugar or chocolate for them. So, after browsing around a ton of cake and cupcake recipe I found this carrot cake recipe. It's originally a layer cake recipe that I modify into cupcakes and add in a few ingredients of my own. 

CARROT! 

       No argument about how healthy it is for us, which makes it a good reason to give to those kids. And as many as the rest of you, I am a big fan of carrot cake. Especially when it's moist and fluffy and coated with light butter cream.. hhhm. I drool already just imagining it.

So, let's get started!

This batter will make around 24 cupcakes.

You might need :

1 1/2 cup  granulated sugar

1 cup     vegetable oil, or you can substitute it with melted 

          butter

3          eggs

2 cups     all purpose flour, 

           sieve

2 tsp      cinnamon

1 tsp      baking soda

1 tsp      vanilla extract

1/2 tsp    salt

2 tbsp     milk

21/2-3cups grated carrot  

         (approx. 400gr carrot)

Now, let's mix all those ingredients together.....

1. First thing you want to do is pre-heat your oven to 180C. 

2. Prepare your muffin tin and line it with cupcake liners.

3. Grate the carrots. For that amount of carrots this might take you a while. And let me tell you, this is not my  favorite part of the baking. 

4. After about 10 minutes grating, THIS is the result you might want to get.

5. In a big bowl, add in sugar, vegetable oil/melted butter, and eggs together. Mix them well until they're light and fluffy.

6. In a separate bowl mix flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon together. Give them a little whisk just to get all the ingredient well incorporated.

7. Add in 1/2 of the dry ingredient to the wet ingredient batter (sugar, oil, egg). Give it a little mix.

8. Add in the rest of the dry ingredient and mix again. Remember, DO NOT OVERMIX!

9. Pour in the vanilla extract.

10. Stir in the grated carrots. Using a spatula mix it all well together.

11. Divide the batter equally into the cupcake liners.

12. Bake it for about 20-25 minutes or you can test it by sticking in a toothpick. When it comes out clean that means your cake is done.

13. Put them on the wire racks and let them cool completely before you start frosting them. 

 These cupcakes are ready to frost and decorate....

Ps: I tasted one of them right away (yeah, can't wait). This cupcake is so moist and tender and very tasty. It's really worth to try.

Sweet Sour Fish Pasta

      Finding idea for dinner has always been a challenge. I try not to be monotonous by serving Indonesian or western dishes too often for my husband. Today I came up with a brilliant idea of combining two of our favorite dishes. It's a sweet sour sauce fish served with pasta. A simple fusion of Thai/Chinese/Indonesian (I honestly do not know to which country this dish originally belongs to) with an Italian dish. Back home this meal is usually served with cooked rice, but not tonight, there will be pasta going along with it. Let's see how it will become. 

For 2 person meal, you might need:


1/2 red pepper, diced
2   small red chilly pepper
1   onion
3   tomatoes, diced
1   garlic, minced
1cm ginger, grated
3tbsp tomato puree
300 gr fish fillet, diced
Rigatoni pasta
salt
black pepper
sugar
olive oil

Steps :

1. As starter, you might want to boil some water for your pasta. Cooking the pasta will take around 8-15 minutes depending on the type of pasta you use. This time I'm using the rigatoni pasta and it takes 14 minutes to cook.

2. Heat up the pan with some olive oil.

3. Saute the onion, chilly and garlic together until the fragrant comes out.

4. To add a little bit of the asian taste I add in a little bit of ginger. Add it in.

5. Add in the red pepper.

6. Then the diced tomatoes.

7. Let them cook for a while. 

8. Meanwhile you might want to start cooking your pasta. Don't forget to add in a bit of oil and salt into the water.

9. Back to the sauce, add in the fish.

10. Spice it with salt, pepper and sugar. Yeah, I put sugar in this dish to add up the sweet flavour in the sauce. Not too much, 1 or 2 pinch(es) would be enough. You don't want to turn your dish into jam. :)

11. Put the lid of the pan and let it cook for a while.

12. After 2-3 minutes add in the tomato pure. You can add more to it until you get the consistency you want of the sauce. 

13. Let it simmer.

14. Check out your pasta and when it's done, drain it and pour it into the sauce.

15. Mix the pasta and sauce together under low heat. 

16. Serve.

Have fun trying this recipe and let me know how you think about it. ;-)

Soto Ayam Recipe

My brother in-law fell in love with this food after his return from his honeymoon trip to Indonesia a couple of weeks ago. Not long after that my sister in-law asked for a simple recipe to make this very famous Indonesian dish. There are many different type of soto, all differs from the region it comes from. Since I originally come from Central Java, the soto recipe I knew is the one that comes from Java, particularly from Solo, Central Java. And just a moment ago a friend of mine whose currently staying in Amsterdam was asking for the same recipe. So, I thought why not adding it to my blog so that the others could also try out to make this simple, delicious and refreshing food. 

Here it is...

You might need :
1 kg or 1   whole chicken
50 gr       rice noodle (soak it in warm water)
200gr       cabbage ( cut in fine stripes )
4           boiled eggs
5 tbsp      fried onions
2           celery/parsley


For the soup
1 ltr       water
1 1/4       salt
2cm         laos, pressed
1           lemon grass, pressed
2           green onions
3           shallots
5           garlic
1cm         ginger
1cm         turmeric
2tsp        pepper
3           orange leaves
5           red peppers
10          small red chilly peppers
3           limes
cooking oil


Steps:

1. First thing you want to do is cleaning the chicken. If you have the whole chicken, you might want to cut it into pieces. The size and amount is up to your preferences. If you have the already cut one you can just right away proceed to the next step.

2. Boil the water. Add in the salt and chicken. Cook it.

3. Once the chicken is cooked, take 1 liter of the stock. Set the cooked chicken aside.

4. Heat up some cooking oil or if you have a fryer you could use one. Fry the chicken until the outer skin is dried. Cool them. After they're not to hot for you to touch, shred the chicken into small pieces and set it aside. This will be used as the filling in the soup later.

5. Grind the shallots, garlic, ginger, turmeric and  pepper using mortal and pestle or a blender machine if you have one. Do it until you get a very fine result. 

6. Saute the fine ground spices in a bit of cooking oil (around 3tbsp). Add in the lemon grass, green onion, orange leaves and laos. Do it until the fragrant comes out. Then turn off the heat.

7. Pour the spices into the chicken stock. Cook it. Once it's boiled set it aside.

8. Now for the sambal (spicy sauce). Clean, wash and boil the red peppers and small red chilly pepers. Add in a pinch of salt and grind them, preferably using the mortal and pestle because you don't want to get a very fine result. Mix them. Serve.

9. Arranging the bowl. Put the rice noodle, sliced cabbage, shredded chicken in a bowl and pour the soup into it. Add in a bit of fried onion, celery and lime juice to add up some taste. 

10. Add also the sambal up to your preferences.

11. It's ready to serve and enjoy. This warm kind of soup dish is really perfect to be consumed during the cold winter day. Hmmm..yummmm.

Cake Topper - Rose Flower from Fondant

      Making a beautiful rose to put on top of your favorite cake is not as difficult as you may think. With simple tools that you can find around your kitchen, you can create it with no hustle at all. That's exactly what I do since I don't have many fancy cake tools. They can be a bit pricey sometimes. So here I'm sharing you my simple way to make rose flower cake topper from fondant or gum paste. 


Tools you might need :

• Sharp kitchen knife.
• Plastic file folder. The one you usually use to save your files/documents. I use a zip-lock since I couldn't find any plastic folder in the drawer. Cut the edges leaving one edge left.
• Small tip brush and a bit of water as glue if needed.

Steps :
1. Make 1 big ball of fondant of any colour you like and a few of small balls for the petals.

2. Take the big ball. Roll the bottom part of it using your palms forming it into a cone. 

3. Put it on the mat with the pointy part upward pressing the fat part on the bottom. Flatten it as the base of the flower. 

4. Using your pointers press the area between the cone and the bottom. Give it a slight press and roll it gently.

5. This is the result you want to get. The cone will be the pistil of the flower. Set it aside.

6. Put 3 of the smalls into the plastic folder. Cover them.

7. Using the back of your palm press each of the balls. 

8. Flatten the balls one by one leaving the back part a big thicker than the front. You might want to flat the front part pretty thin to make the petals looks more real.

9. Once you got the desired size of each ball. Take one of it and wrap it around the pistil cone you made before. Press the bottom part to the gap between the bottom and the cone to stick it together. Fresh fondant is still easy to paste. If your fondant has dried out a bit use the brush and a tip of water to glue them together. 

10. Continue doing it to the other flattened balls. 

11. You can add up as many petals as you want depending on how big you want your rose to be.

12. Once you get the desired flower, give a little press at the bottom of the flower to stick the petals together and cut it using a knife. 

13. Make little frill on the edge of the petals to give real effect of the rose. You can use your fingers to do it or the knife, but be very careful not to leave any scratching mark on the petals when you're using the knife.

14. There you have a pretty rose flower to use as a topper on your cake or cupcakes.

Good luck! 

Basic Vanilla Cupcake

Here is my basic vanilla cupcake recipe that I use for most of my cupcakes. The recipe is pretty easy to follow and the result is amazing. Soft and indulgent. The ingredients are easy to get, and I believe most of them are already in your cupboard just waiting for you to grab and mix.




Ingredients:
175 gram unsalted butter, room temperature
175 gram castor sugar
175 gram all purpose flour, sifted
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
3 tbsp buttermilk/whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract





Steps:

1. First thing you want to do is pre-heat your oven to 180C. 

2. Line your cupcake tin with cupcake liners. 

3. Mix all your dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt). Sift it. 

4. In a big bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until they are creamy, soft and fluffy. 

Take your time to cream them, around 5 minutes. The more you cream it the better texture of cake will you get.

5. Add in the vanilla extract to the batter and keep on mixing.

6. Add one egg at a time, you might also want to add a teaspoon of flour to stop the mixing from getting to loose. Do this again for the other 2 eggs.

7. Next thing you want to do is add in the dry ingredient. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredient and mix it. I would recommend using spatula or whisk to avoid over-mixing which will cause the result cake becoming to dense and more like a bread instead of a moist cupcake. 

8. Then add 1tbsp of milk, mix it. Add another 1/3 of the dry ingredient, alternately adding in the milk until all the dry ingredient and milk are done. 

9. Mix them thoroughly using spatula just enough to get all the batter incorporated. Remember, DO NOT OVERMIX.

10. Divide your mixture into your cupcake tin evenly. 

11. Put it into the oven for about 18-20 minutes or you can test it by inserting a toothpick into the cake. And when it comes out clean that means your cakes are ready. 

12. Let them cool completely before you start decorating them. 

Have fun trying the recipe!

Check out more of my creations at www.MiNiBakes.nl

The Beginning

Every great thing starts with a first step.

I finally managed to collect my guts to learn cake decorating. Baking has been one of the things I like to do in the past and I always admire those wonderful and pretty looking customized cakes or cupcakes. However, having to work full time and sometimes overtime left me with no extra time to try out and spend few hours sitting in the kitchen busying myself with flour, sugar and butter. 

Until recently.

I am now becoming one of those married women who stay at home and have all the time in the world to do whatever we like. After a while being busy with getting around in my new home and neighbourhood, I finally took the time to start making my first customized cake for my mother in law during the Mother's Day. 

It turned out pretty well and not as difficult as I thought it would be. 

Living in the vastly developing world like nowadays, it  is very easy to find tutorials and ideas on making and decorating cakes. All information is spread freely on the table. You just have to click and choose the one that suits you.

In this blog I will share some information, ideas and creation I have found, made and create throughout my learning process. 

It's always fun to show off a bit of what you can do to the rest of the world. 

Enjoy

:-)